<p>I saw a video on reslife.tamu.edu and the kid on the videon said, "its all you can </p>
<p>eat buffet" Does this mean you just use your dining dollars to pay flat fee and </p>
<p>can eat all you want?I mean, I know some colleges charge you based on weight </p>
<p>of the food (Ex BC..BOOO!) </p>
<p>Or does eating buffet style meal count as 1 meal? (In the meal plan)</p>
<p>Last question, Buffet is only one of the dining options right?</p>
<p>Thank you :) I appreciate it.</p>
<p>I am going to TAMUCS!</p>
<p>V ('__') V</p>
<p>_^)++++<< Fish</p>
<p>:) I'm happy you're so excited! That's how I felt when I got in, and the enthusiasm has only increased during my freshman year.</p>
<p>The meal plans: You buy a package of Meals and Dining Dollars. You can get mostly Dining Dollars and fewer meals or mostly meals and fewer dining dollars, and you can pick how big of a plan you want in general.
Every restaurant and dining hall on campus takes your meal plan. Most have a "Maroon Plate Special," which is basically an entree, maybe a side, plus a drink and fruit or cookies. The entree and side vary with the restaurant, like the Chik-fil-a will give you a sandwich or box of chicken nuggets and an order of waffle fries (plus the drink and cookies/fruit). The salad place beside it will give you any of their salads and a piece of garlic bread, plus drink and cookies/fruit. Some, like the wrap restaurant and the wonderful pasta place in the Commons, only give you an entree (plus fruit/cookies and drink), but they're huge, so it's no big deal. You can get the Maroon Plate Special for one meal.<br>
You can also use dining dollars to pay for what you want directly, like if you just want some fries but not a drink or sandwich or anything. You get a small discount for using Dining dollars over using cash. The two convenience stores on campus, Rattler's, also take Dining Dollars, so you can get loaves of bread and frozen entrees and stuff to take back to your dorm. (It's usually much cheaper at the local grocery stores, though.)
The all-you-can-eat bit relates to Sbisa and Duncan, the dining halls. It costs one meal to get in, and once you're in, you can eat as much as you want. (Usually the food's pretty good, and there's good variety during the week and okay variety on the weekends.) They don't weigh your food, but they also don't let you take food out. They don't care if you're munching an ice cream bar as you leave, but don't, like, load up your backpack with pizza or something.<br>
I think a meal plan is a good idea if you live on campus, but you don't need a terribly big one.<br>
Last semester I used about 100-110 meals and maybe 200 Dining Dollars. (I bought a bigger meal plan, then converted some of the meals to Dining Dollars towards the end when I realized I could never eat 65 meals in three weeks. :) $3 for a meal is not a good deal, but it's better than nothing.) This semester I bought a smaller meal plan and bought sandwich stuff at HEB for the other meals, and I used 75 meals and about 150 Dining Dollars. (I kind of wish I'd had more, though. It just pained me to spend so much when I knew I could eat cheaper by buying groceries and keeping them in a minifridge.)</p>
<p>I hope that helps! Feel free to message me if you have more questions.</p>
<p>Congratulations again on your acceptance! Welcome to the Aggie family!</p>
<p>The all-you-can-eat bit relates to Sbisa and Duncan, the dining halls. It costs one meal to get in, and once you're in, you can eat as much as you want. (Usually the food's pretty good, and there's good variety during the week and okay variety on the weekends.) They don't weigh your food, but they also don't let you take food out. WHHHOP!</p>
<p>thanks for the reply (again..hehe) </p>
<p>Its very informative.. I KNOW I will be a frequent duncan visitor!</p>
<p>P.S.- COULD U answer my question on teh post below ( I wanted to know if it would be worth being on the waitlist for dorm. Temporary housing; it said I will have to live 3 or more week in the study room..</p>
<p>One thing about the dining halls.....Duncan is the dining hall for the Corps of Cadets. I think you can eat there at lunch if you want to, but trust me....you don't want to. Stick with Sbisa, which has yummy cookies, by the way.</p>
<p>Along these lines, I'd like to mention AggieBucks.</p>
<p>The Aggiebucks program here is amazing. You can buy Aggiebucks (1 Aggiebuck = $1) at the beginning of the semester, and then use your ID card like a debit card. This doesn't sound like much of a big deal, but the money is real money that doesn't ever become deactivated or anything; it's your money. The nicest thing about it is that 90% of the vending machines on campus take them. You just swipe your card and it deducts the cost from your account. This is SO MUCH EASIER than carrying quarters around (and a lot better than wasting your precious laundry quarters on vending machines...) It's really nice when you're at the library studying for a big exam and you're hungry/sleepy and you can just go to the nearest vending machine, swipe your ID card (which you have with you all the time anyway) and get what you need, without having to disrupt your studying much.</p>
<p>The other nice thing about Aggiebucks is that nearly all restaurants in College Station take them, and some grocery stores and convenience stores do, too.
I don't use Aggiebucks for this usually, but it's really nice to have that money on your card for when you forgot cash or don't have enough with you. It's a great backup.</p>
<p>You don't need a lot of Aggiebucks, because you can always add more later, but having some is really, really helpful here. Aggiebucks are not part of the meal plan (and local restaurants don't take Dining Dollars); they're separate. But all the places on campus and the vast majority of the restaurants off campus take them, so it's worth buying some. You should have the option to do that when you come for your New Student Conference, during registration for classes.</p>
<p>Just wanted to throw that out there. Okay, back to studying for finals!</p>